ABOUT US

Steve Friess is a 2011-12 recipient of the prestigious Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he will be studying the impact of the rapid expansion of Vegas-style gaming on Asia. He's a podcaster, author and Vegas-based freelance journalist who writes regularly for USA Today, The New York Times, Newsweek and many others. His column, "The Strip Sense" appears every Thursday in the Las Vegas Weekly. His books include "Gay Vegas" from Huntington Press and Knopf Mapguides' "Las Vegas."Friess co-hosts the weekly celebrity interview podcast The Strip Podcast "The Strip" with his husband, Miles Smith, the executive producer at KSNV-TV, Channel 3. For four years, Steve also co-hosted The Petcast with Las Vegas Sun education scribe Emily Richmond.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

On Feb. 10, I observed Cirque du Soleil's open audition process for dancers. This weekend, I put together this special 9-minute video episode of The Strip to show how it worked. You can right-click on that link above to download it or click on the YouTube embedded player below to watch. (Subscribe to the show via iTunes or via Zune to get all new content from "The Strip.")

You can also read my Las Vegas Weekly column for more. And, as promised, here are some more photos.

As you can see in the video, the dancers had to perform improv numbers inspired by certain words they were given to whatever music was played for them. The first dancer, who is in the video, was given the word "airborne." I don't recall what the second one was told to do.

They also learned some steps of "Love" and "Criss Angel Believe" and then performed those for the casting team.

For some reason, No. 229 really loved my camera...

There was a lot of sitting around, of course:

Here is Cirque casting director Krista Monson speaking to the dancers who were still in the running to be qualified for potential Cirque roles. This is the afternoon of the fourth and final day of auditions.

It was an impressive experience, but it was also reassuring. I mean, who would've expected to find this...

THE STRIP FINALE

Below are links to the final episodes and last week of special editions of The Strip Podcast. Right-click on any of these to save and hear at your leisure. Otherwise, click on them and they should play. Enjoy, and thanks for the wonderful years.